Day 179 Mannum & Murray River

It is time for us to leave Adelaide for Mannum, a town next to the Murray River. As the drive to Mannum from Adelaide takes less than two hours, we decided to take the chance to look again for koalas. First stop was the Mt Lofty Lookout for some views over Adelaide. Before walking around on this pretty chilly morning, we had some breakfast at the cafe (and luckily did not die by death by chocolate cake, although it was lots of chocolate).

We drove on to the Cleland National Park to walk around looking for koalas and other wildlife. We were able to find koalas but also a kookaburra and a colorful bird as well as lots of wildflowers blossom.

After our walks it was time to leave the Adelaide area for Mannum and the Murray River. We took a scenic drive from Mannum, starting with a car ferry ride over the Murray to different Lookouts along the drive. The first, Forster Lookout, showed us, that the water level of the Murray cannot be normal as there were quite some houses with water in the front yard or sandbags around the houses. At Len Kroehn´s Lookout, it was not so easy to see, but the trees in the water are probably not all year round in the water and still alive. The Nildottie Lookout had it is own photo frame, but we were not able to squeeze the Murray in the frame. The Murray has two water arms at this point, but they are normally not as big as these days. The last and well-known Big Bend Lookout gave also impressive views on the bluff of the Murray.

For the drive back we decided to take the car ferry at Purnong over the Murray. At the arrival the picnic area with the toilets gave a good impression on how low the water of the Murray is normally. On the drive to Purnong the water was pretty close to the street, so most likely will be flooded at one point in the future, but luckily not on our drive. Just after leaving Purnong we saw a turtle at the street. As all attempts to make the turtle move off the street by itself failed, we decided to carry the turtle over the street. Well, it confused the turtle very much, but it ran off into the water, which is certainly better than being on the street with the cars.

At arrival at our campground in Mannum, which is located right next to the ferry and the Murray, we could see, that the Murray was already having a lot more water than usual: there were heavy machines building a dam to prevent the water from flowing further into the campground. Some picnic table and sites were already flooded. An Australian also having a look around told us, that the highest point of the flood will be reached in 2 weeks time, so that what we see is not a lot of water. We were pretty surprised about this information given that half of the campground was already flooded but all the preparations with the dam and also for the closure of the ferry service suggest that there will be lots more water in the next days.